Newcastle United defender Massadio Haidara has admitted his surprise that Callum McManaman will not be facing punishment for a tackle which he feels could have ruined his life, but he is no longer angry with the Wigan forward and would be prepared to meet him.
Haidara had to be stretchered off in Sunday's game after being caught by a high challenge from McManaman, who was not disciplined by referee Mark Halsey at the time and cannot face retrospective action as the incident was seen by at least one of the match officials.
Haidara is still waiting to discover the extent of the damage but he has tweeted that he is 'getting better and better'.
But he was astonished to learn that McManaman had escaped a ban, telling Le Parisien it was 'hard to swallow'.
He said: "I don't understand. His tackle could have ended my career and ruined my life but in the end he will play football before me. We have to protect the players. I don't want to change the physical mentality, pace and commitment of football in England but we can't tolerate tackles like this in football."
Wigan manager Roberto Martinez revealed after the final whistle on Sunday that McManaman wanted to contact Haidara to make an apology, and the 20-year-old Frenchman is ready to meet him.
"There is the difficulty of the language barrier but I think we will try to see each other with an interpreter," he said, before adding that he would not hold a grudge.
"In the moment, I was really, really angry with him. I thought he had stopped my career. Now I feel differently and just hope that this will give him a lesson and that next time he will know how to stop himself."
